ty
to hear Colonel French was a privilege not to be neglected.

The colonel, consenting good-humouredly, was introduced to the school
in very flowery language. The pupils were sitting, the teacher
informed them, in the shadow of a great man. A distinguished member of
the grand old aristocracy of their grand old native State had gone to
the great North and grown rich and famous. He had returned to his old
home to scatter his vast wealth where it was most needed, and to give
his fellow townsmen an opportunity to add their applause to his
world-wide fame. He was present to express his sympathy with their
feeble efforts to rise in the world, and he wanted the scholars all to
listen with the most respectful attention.

Colonel French made a few simple remarks in which he spoke of the
advantages of education as a means of forming character and of fitting
boys and girls for the work of men and women. In former years his
people had been charged with direct responsibility for the care of
many coloured children, and in a larger and indirect way they were
still responsible for their descendants. He urged them to make the
best of their opportunities and try to fit themselves for useful
citizenship. They would meet with the difficulties that all men must,
and with some peculiarly their own. But they must look up and not
down, forward and not back, seeking always incentives to hope rather
than excuses for failure. Before leaving, he arranged with the
teacher, whose name was Taylor, to meet several of the leading
coloured men, with whom he wished to discuss some method of improving
their school and directing their education to more definite ends. The
meeting was subsequently held.

"What your people need," said the colonel to the little gathering at
the schoolhouse one evening, "is to learn not only how to read and
write and think, but to do these things to some definite end. We live
in an age of specialists. To make yourselves valuable members of
society, you must learn to do well some particular thing, by which
you may reasonably expect to earn a comfortable living in your own
home, among your neighbours, and save something for old age and the
education of your children. Get together. Take advice from some of
your own capable leaders in other places. Find out what you can do for
yourselves, and I will give you three dollars for every one you can
gather, for an industrial school or some similar institution. Take
your time, and wh